


We Were Born Sick

by themayqueen



Series: Pieces Fit [2]
Category: Hanson, Phantom Planet
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Infidelity, Light BDSM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themayqueen/pseuds/themayqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse of Taylor's life long before Scott.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Were Born Sick

Just one line.

Just one line of the song that I forgot during the in-store performance.

Just one line full of lies-- _I’ll be fine after the promo tour, I swear_ \--to get Natalie off my back. 

Just one line of text typed into my phone and sent off into the ether like a silent prayer.

Just one fine line of snow white cocaine on the hotel sink to help me forget that I was cheating on my wife with another man.

****

There was a haze of thick, heady smoke throughout the entire house. I had a feeling that wasn’t just because of the party; something told me Alex Greenwald’s house was just like that all the time. It was just a guess, though, because this was the first time I’d been bold enough to spend time with him alone. Sure, being seen with him in public was dangerous, too, but in a different way. He knew better than to show any affection to me in public; in private, there was probably no limit to what he would do to me.

I didn’t even remember how we’d gone from the living room to his bedroom. That’s just how it was when I drank; important, transitional moments vanished from my memory seconds after they occurred. If I was honest, that was how I ended up dating Natalie, too. One second we’d been sneaking drinks from the mini bar in Ike’s room, and the next my tongue was down her throat. I was sure something else important had transpired in between, but I couldn’t remember, and the next morning she woke up convinced we were a couple.

What Alex and I were… well, I wasn’t entirely sure. We just _were_.

He wasn’t gentle with or even especially kind to me. In a way, that was what I liked about him. I liked that he hadn’t asked any questions, just nodded toward his bedroom and known that I would follow him. I liked that he shoved me back onto the bed and took the lead. I was too embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t even kissed another man before him; he didn’t ask those sort of questions, thankfully. He just took the reins and let me fall into place. He knew, though. He had to know.

“ _Alex_ ,” I whined, when I felt his teeth sink into my neck. “You can’t—what if there’s a mark?”

“Would it be so bad for everyone to know you’re mine?”

I wanted to scream at him that of course it would be. But I didn’t. I just pulled my shirt over my head and hoped he would get the hint and move his lips farther south. He could leave all the marks he wanted on my chest; while we were out in California recording, I didn’t get to see Natalie very often. The marks would fade by the time she saw me again. Anyone else who might see me shirtless, like my brothers… well, if they didn’t know, they certainly suspected. 

“Are you nervous?” Alex asked, his breath hot against my skin as the words escaped his mouth. 

I nodded, letting my hair fall in my face to hide the blush I was sure was creeping up it. It was pointless, really, since the blush started around my collarbone. 

Without a word, he pulled back and stretched to pull something out of the drawer next to his bed. I didn’t have to guess what it was. I don’t remember who gave me the first line, but it was the same party where I’d been introduced to Alex. I knew it was a horrible habit, but I’d yet to find anything else that lifted the weight from my shoulders that was constantly threatening to crush me. Trying to hold together a relationship I wasn’t sure I wanted and record an album that I knew the record label didn’t want was too much—something had to give. But with Alex, and with just a little of that powder in my system, none of the rest of that mattered.

While I was lost in my thoughts, he’d drawn a perfect line on his wrist. He held his hand out a little shakily and I placed mine at the bend of his elbow to steady it. With his free hand, Alex offered me a rolled up dollar bill, and I took it willingly. Bending my head, I carefully snorted up every molecule he’d offered me. 

“Not bad,” he said, a smirk turning up the corner of his lips. “Now hold still.”

He pulled my hand toward him and carefully crafted another line along my wrist this time. The smirk turned into a bit of a snarl as he snorted it up. I held still for him the best that I could with the drug already coursing through my veins, but a shiver ran through my body when he licked up the residue it had left behind. The back of my hand wasn’t an erogenous zone by any means—at least, I didn’t think it was—but when Alex’s tongue touched it? That was a different story entirely.

I was going to hell, I was sure. But stars were already dancing behind my eyes and I really didn’t care. I fell willingly onto the mattress and let Alex have his way with me.

****

“You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Neither have you.” 

I wasn’t lying, but Alex was. I knew that two kids had aged me nearly a decade already. There were creases around my eyes and deep worry lines crossing my forehead. I was drinking more, too, when I couldn’t find better poisons, like the one Alex had gotten me addicted to. Maybe it wasn’t entirely fair to blame him for the coke habit, but there were certain other habits no one but him could lay claim to.

We were all but anonymous in the dark booth of the coffee shop he’d agreed to meet me in. No one would even notice that we were sitting on the same side, Alex’s hand creeping up my thigh as we drank our cappuccinos.

Before long, we were back in my hotel, the cab ride there and the elevator ride to my room lost in a haze. I wasn’t drunk, but being with Alex had that effect on me, and there _was_ still a little bit of coke coursing through my body. Between that, the espresso and Alex’s lips on my neck as soon as the hotel room door shut behind us, I wasn’t sure I would make it through the afternoon without my heart beating right out of my chest.

He tossed me onto the bed like a ragdoll, and I didn’t complain. He knew how I liked it, better than my wife did. Of course, it was different with him anyway. I was, more often than not, in the submissive role—in more ways than one. 

It took almost no effort for him to hold me down against the mattress. Alex knew I would submit to him easily, so the hand holding my wrists together above my head was more of a formality than anything else. His teeth sank into my neck, and he had to know it would leave a mark. He knew that Natalie would know who did it, too. He just didn’t care. And what could I do to stop him? Plenty, but I wouldn’t. He knew that, too.

The way he peeled my clothes off so slowly was torture. Of course, that’s why he did it. I couldn’t stop myself from whining out _please_ when he rolled my boxer briefs down inch by inch, and I was rewarded with a heavy smack on my upper thigh. The sound echoed through the room and made me gasp. 

But it made me whole, too.

I needed this in a way that only Alex could deliver. At one time, I thought that I was punishing myself for wanting to be with another man, as though the battle wounds I left the encounter with were some sort of penance for my horrible desires. But the truth is that it just felt good—so, so exquisitely good, like nothing else in the world.

And Alex understood that like no one else. So when I cried out again, begging him to do more than just trail his fingers across my thighs, he dug his fingernails in. They sank into my flesh at the same moment that his lips touched my cock, and finally, for just a moment, I was free.

****

“He left a mark on you this time,” Natalie commented.

I hadn’t even noticed that she had walked into our bathroom. She always stalked around the house so quietly, even when she was hugely pregnant and waddling; it was unsettling. At her words, my hand flew to my neck and the bite mark I knew was there. If I had wanted to feign ignorance, I had given myself away. 

Natalie hadn’t been ignorant of my relationship with Alex when she and I were still clinging to what was left of our own relationship. I never confirmed or denied that the relationship had continued since then, but she knew. Of course she knew. I had a bad habit of falling into relationships with people who were too smart for my own good.

We had only been home from the promo tour for a few days, and while Alex hadn’t managed to leave any bruises, there were a few little signs of his presence—signs that of course my wife had noticed. 

“Why do you let him do stuff like that to you?” She asked, tilting her head to the side with what looked like genuine curiosity, not judgment or scorn.

“We’ve talked about this before,” I said, not meeting the eyes of her reflection in the mirror.

“Is it because he’s a man or is it the pain thing? Because if it’s just that, I don’t see why you need to go behind my back.”

I spun around to face her, and in spite of how comical she looked with her wide eyes and crossed arms, I could see that her words were in earnest. Sometimes I didn’t give the woman I had been all but forced to marry enough credit. Of course she didn’t want me to stray or our marriage to fail; she would do what it took to keep me. The pink fuzzy handcuffs she had been given as a bachelorette party gift had been a running joke between us, but there was a seriousness to her desire to help feed _my_ desires. I suddenly felt even guiltier for indulging those needs elsewhere.

“Come to bed,” she said softly when I didn’t manage any sort of reply. When I still didn’t reply, Natalie stepped in closer to me and placed her hand firmly on my waist, fingernails digging into the soft, sensitive flesh just like Alex’s had a few days prior. 

“Okay,” I breathed out.

There was a distinct sway in her hips as she walked away from me. Under other circumstances, I probably would have found that sexy. Right then, it just made me wish for another line, but I tried to leave that habit on tour.

I was going to hell, and I was taking Natalie with me.


End file.
